Run into Trouble

by

Alan Cook

SMASHWORDS EDITION

“Running and fiction don’t often mix well,
typically because few authors who have attempted the trick have
been able to capture the authentic nuances of training and racing.
But author Alan Cook has pulled it off with
Run into
Trouble
…”

—Peter Rosato for Running Times Magazine

“
The main characters are likable, and the story is
compelling. As the runners close in on the end of the race, pages
turned faster…”

—Sherry Benec

“The plot is most unusual—a
thriller set in a race from the San Diego coast all the way to San
Francisco. Woven in among the action and intrigue are wonderfully
described settings of the California coast.”

—Marilyn Meredith for American
Authors Association

PUBLISHED BY:

Alan Cook on Smashwords

Run into Trouble

Copyright ©
2009 by Alan L. Cook.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the
prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various
products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used
without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not
authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark
owners.

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ALSO BY ALAN COOK

Gary Blanchard Mysteries:

Honeymoon for Three

The Hayloft: a 1950s mystery

California Mystery:

Hotline to Murder

Lillian Morgan mysteries:

Catch a Falling Knife

Thirteen Diamonds

Other fiction:

Walking to Denver

Nonfiction:

Walking the World: Memories and
Adventures

History:

Freedom’s Light: Quotations from History’s
Champions of Freedom

Poetry:

The Saga of Bill the Hermit

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I appreciate the assistance of my running
consultants, Mike, Phil, and Brian, who provided me with
information and anecdotes about running. Mike read a draft copy of
the book and made good suggestions. Any errors, of course, are
mine.

DEDICATION

To Andy, a freedom fighter

CHAPTER 1

They that can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety.

—
Benjamin Franklin

If the Communists took over, I’d go to them
and say, “What do you want me to do?”

—
Young woman at a party in the Hollywood
Hills, December 1961

***

The taxi driver suddenly swore, causing
Drake to snap out of his reverie. He glanced at the back of the
head in front of him. The man appeared to be looking in the
rearview mirror. Drake spun around in the backseat, and an
identical expletive escaped his lips. A truck was overtaking them
at a high rate of speed. It couldn’t pass them on the narrow road
without crossing into the opposing lane of traffic, and the driver
apparently had no intention of doing that.

“Step on it.”

Drake’s order came too late. He
instinctively ducked his head an instant before the collision,
which drove his face into the thinly padded seat back. The noise
sounded like an exploding bomb, and he thought he was back in the
army.

Then all was silent. Drake wondered whether
he was dead, as he always did after a similar occurrence. He heard
a noise. The engine of the truck was revving. He raised his head in
time to see the truck backing up. Was the driver planning to hit
them again? Probably not. He would have to drive into the field
where the taxi had landed after being momentarily airborne. The
truck swerved onto a side road. It skidded to a stop and then
lurched forward, accelerating back toward Interstate 5.

The rear end of the taxi had telescoped, and
Drake realized that a few more inches and he would have telescoped
along with it. Through the broken rear window he saw liquid
spilling out of what had once been the gas tank. Gasoline. He had
to get out of here.

He heard a moan. He realized for the first
time that the driver was lying in the backseat beside him. His seat
back had broken during the collision.

“Are you all right?”

An answering moan told him that he would
have to get them both out. Drake shoved at the mangled door beside
the driver, not bothering to look for the door handle, which was
surely non-functional. The door was jammed. He tried the door on
the other side with equal lack of success. He reached across the
driver into the front seat and found the handle on the driver’s
side door. Although that door didn’t look as bad, it didn’t respond
to his pressure.

The easiest way out was through the rear
window; the glass was already broken. Drake knocked out several
loose pieces of glass that were still clinging to the window frame.
He grabbed the shoulders of the driver who was lying on his back,
his body partially on the errant seat back, and tried to lift him.
He was greeted with a full-fledged groan.

No time to be gentle. Drake hefted the
driver up, ignoring louder groans, and shoved him head first
through the window. He stopped for a second to collect his energy
and realized he was panting. With a supreme effort, he pushed the
body after the head. The driver rolled off what was left of the
trunk and hit the ground with a thump.

That had used most of Drake’s strength, but
he had to get himself out. He forced his muscles to move. He got
his head and shoulders through the opening and became stuck. He
couldn’t go any farther. It would be easier to stay here and let
things take their course. Which would involve him burning up in a
fiery inferno, like the suttee he had seen in India.

You candy ass, he told himself. You’ve
gotten yourself out of worse jams than this. Just not recently.
You’re out of practice. Do this one thing and you can rest. He
wiggled his body slowly through the opening, but when most of it
was through, he didn’t have strength enough to stop himself from
rolling off the remains of the trunk, just as the driver had
done.

He felt pain for the first time as his chest
landed on a rock. But he was finished. No, not quite. They weren’t
safe yet. He smelled gasoline. He struggled to his feet and grunted
as he lifted the driver under his arms near the shoulders, dragging
him away from the car into the dirt of the field, which,
fortunately, had nothing planted in it at the moment.

He stumbled backward, slowly, the earth and
the legs and butt of the driver creating friction, noticing the
sweat rolling down his face, his lungs feeling as if they would
collapse. How far did they have to go?

A fireball whooshed into the air in all
directions; Drake felt the heat from it, even though they were now
a safe distance away. He dropped the driver and hit the ground
himself, watching in awe as the car was consumed by angry red
flames. He hadn’t seen a fire this spectacular in a long time.

How was the driver? Drake sat up and looked
at him. His eyes were open.

“How do you feel?”

“My neck hurts.”

Whiplash. He also had some cuts from the
broken glass. Drake took out a handkerchief and wiped them off, but
they weren’t bleeding badly. If those were the extent of his
injuries, he was lucky. He noticed the driver staring up at
him.

“You’re bleeding, man.”

Drake put his hand to his face, and his
fingers felt the red liquid gushing out of his nose. He had been
unconsciously licking it off his lips. He pressed the handkerchief
against his nostrils to stanch the flow and jumped as pain radiated
through his head. His nose was broken. What else? He needed to take
inventory. In addition to the cuts he had suffered from the broken
glass, his back hurt. Of course. His body had been twisted when the
collision occurred.

He became aware of a car heading toward the
still burning taxi, traveling at high speed, coming from the
direction of the beach. It must be associated with the race he was
supposed to be entering. The car stopped fast, not far from the
taxi, and two men jumped out. They got as close to the fire as they
could and appeared to be looking for something.

Signs of life, Drake thought grimly. Well,
don’t keep them in suspense. He laboriously stood up and waved his
hand. They still didn’t see him. “Over here.” Shouting made his
head hurt.

***

The one thing Drake insisted on was that the
taxi driver get the medical treatment he needed and a brand new
car, even if Drake, himself, had to pay for it. Why should he
suffer when he hadn’t been the target of the attack? He was
collateral damage, as the military liked to say.

“It’s all being taken care of.”

Fred Rathbun had introduced himself as the
race coordinator while he and his assistant, a man with a name that
sounded like Peaches, helped Drake and the taxi driver into their
car and drove them to a hospital in Chula Vista. After spending a
lot of time on a pay phone in the lobby, Fred joined Drake in the
emergency room where he waited for his x-rays to be developed.

“Giganticorp is going to cover all his
expenses and pay him a salary while he recuperates. And we’ll buy
him a brand new taxi. Of course, we’re also covering your expenses
since you’re a participant in Running California.”

Was a participant. Giganticorp, the sponsor
of the ambitious race from the Mexican border to San Francisco, had
been difficult for Drake to obtain information about. It was
privately owned but apparently wealthy enough to easily afford the
million dollar prize that would go to the winning team. That was
enough information for Drake who was a capitalist at heart. He
viewed free enterprise as a good thing. He had been working as a
real estate agent for several years.

Fred wore a business suit, white shirt, and
tie. His clothes made him look more like an IBM sales rep than a
race coordinator. He smelled of some kind of aftershave. As an
employee of Giganticorp, he was first and foremost a businessman,
but race coordinators, in Drake’s experience, usually looked as if
they could run a race. Fred looked like the conception of an artist
who liked circles. His body was round, his face was round, even his
short haircut was round.

“Do you have any idea who hit you?” Fred
asked.

The question was phrased in an interesting
way. Not “Did you get a look at the truck?” or “Did you get a look
at the driver?” How much did Giganticorp know about him? Probably
not as much as he imagined.

“It was a pickup truck. I didn’t get a look
at the driver. I don’t even remember the color. It looked pretty
much like any other pickup truck, except that I caught a glimpse of
the front bumper before it hit us, and it appeared to be larger
than usual—perhaps reinforced.”

“Hmmm.” Fred wiped his sweating face with a
large handkerchief. “So you don’t have any idea who it was?”

It occurred to Drake that he’d better be
careful in dealing with Fred. He might look like Humpty Dumpty, but
looks could be deceiving. “I’m not on any list that I know
about.”

“I understand that you used to work for the
government on some sensitive projects…”

Fred made it an incomplete sentence that
Drake would feel he had to complete. He resisted the impulse.

“Yeah. That was a while ago.”

“Do you want to file a police report?”

Drake hadn’t gotten that far in his
thinking. The taxi driver was being taken care of. He was being
taken care of. He wouldn’t be able to give the police enough
information to help them find the culprit. If this were the work of
a former enemy, the police would be powerless, anyway. But why
would they come after him now? Because the race would undoubtedly
generate publicity? Because his name might be in the papers? It
didn’t make sense.

“I don’t think talking to the police would
accomplish anything.”